5,000 consecutive days of humans on International Space Station

The astronauts aboard the International Space Station reach an exciting milestone of learning how humans adapt to living in space, as July 12 marks 5,000 days since the Expedition One crew of Bill Shepard, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko arrived at the International Space Station.

With a crew on board every day since, more than 24,000 hours of scientific research has been conducted by astronauts from 15 different countries. 5,000 days down, and a lot more to go.

The Cygnus cargo ship is getting ready to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

This will be Orbital Science’s second resupply mission to the station, and Cygnus is loaded with almost 3,300 pounds of supplies for the Expedition 40 crew. Onboard will be numerous science experiments, including 15 studies designed and built by students. Check for the latest mission updates at nasa.gov/orbital.

The next crew to launch to the International Space Station (ISS), including NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore, will participate in a NASA Television news conference and media interviews Wednesday, July 16, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Wilmore, and cosmonauts Elena Serova and Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), will launch to the space station Sept. 25 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft.

The news conference with the crew members will air live on NASA TV at 2 p.m. EDT, July 16. Those following the briefing on social media may ask questions using the hashtag #askNASA.